Infinite Diversities: Coda
by Gentleman Bystander
Summary: Ever wonder what happens to the various other Trips and T'Pols from the Infinite Diversity stories? Well, due to semi-popular demand here they are! These are emotional-basket-case-fuel ficlets that attempt to resolve the unknown for you the readers.


**Legal Disclaimer**

Star Trek and all characters, creations, organization, and locations pertaining there-to are the exclusive property of Viacom, CBS, and Paramount. Use of said characters, creations, organizations, and locations fall under the aegis of the Fair Use Clause and are neither intended nor unintentional generating profit or revenue for the Author.

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**Author Disclaimer**

The story contains contextual and thematic elements that may not be suitable to all audiences. This book is set in a science fiction universe but covers matters of human interactions and relationships that may not be acceptable to all readers. Language and graphic descriptions of violence are common and if this type of writing disturbs you or is unsuitable for viewing by you or your child(ren)/spouse(s)/dependent(s), please do not open this work. This work is replete with references and allusions to romantic relationship and human sexuality as part of the natural process of human socialization and may contain strong sexual content and descriptions there-of. References to suicide, drug use, alcoholism, religion, and politics are also contained here-in. If any of these subject matters are offensive or inappropriate to either yourself or your child(ren)/spouse(s)/dependent(s) please do not view my work as I will not be held responsible for posting material you may view as inappropriate after you elected to open and read it

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**Setting Disclaimer**

Ever wonder what happens to the various other Trips and T'Pols from the Infinite Diversity stories? Well, due to semi-popular demand here they are! These are emotional-basket-case-fuel ficlets that attempt to resolve the unknown for you the readers.

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**Viewing Disclaimer**

This is the last one...I promise. This work is best viewed at 1/2 justification. You know, those goofy little links at the top right corner of the page opposite the genre/title link bar. Seriously...I mean it, this definitely reads better at 1/2, but don't let me force you.

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Coronach I

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There were times she felt that she had missed her only opportunity to know love, it had died on Earth three months ago but the impending sense of sorrow had forced her to flee back to her home and accept the life she had been putting off to avoid drowning in that sorrow two months prior. What she found on Vulcan was a special understanding and a deferment for living bereft and if had come from none other than the one to whom she had always been betrothed. She would likely never _love_ Koss, but she felt close to him now and the closeness may turn to affection some day for he had been unreserved and without judgment over her mourning. They met once prior to him leaving Vulcan on extended business and his first words had been, "I know the one you have loved is all but taken from you, T'Pol, and I know I will never fill that void in your heart and soul, I only wish to help you endure the pain."

It was said without hesitation, without distaste at the distasteful or absurd idea of her loving a human, indeed he only desired to know him as she had, to understand him as she had, to share in her sorrow at what had befell him. In that the acceptance of her responsibility would not become a burden, but rather a refuge. She tried to convince herself at first it was a ploy, a manipulation the part of Koss, but she soon came to know his forthrightness and absolute honesty. He had been gone for a month and upon his return they had completed their Kal-I-far in the tradition of their people and in their month of seclusion they had talked often of him. The marriage remained unconsummated as he had made no overt overtures or coerced her into fulfilling the standard and traditional expectation of their marriage and it made her wonder if perhaps Koss harbored no such appetites were it not for his consistent and understated indications of his affection.

She had settled quickly into a routine since her return, a position had awaited her at the Ministry of Stellar Cartography and Measurements; it was dull but it was consistent and necessary work and there was a level of fulfillment in completing an indispensable task even if it was tame to the point of being tedious compared to her previous posting on a human Star Ship and the things she had experienced there-on. Then there was the secret she would always have to live with; that there were other universes where things had gone decidedly different from hers and as much as she didn't want it to, she had to live knowing there was a Universe where another her had another Trip, the father of her children, a warrior scientist who had terrified her and intrigued her even as she'd wanted her own paler version of him back.

She tried to keep such thoughts to a minimum now out of concern that Koss would sense the information, she didn't want the complication of him knowing there was more than one Charles Anthony Tucker III in the plurality of existence and one that she had felt such emotions for. She approached his study and opened the wood-paneled door, "Koss, the evening meal is ready."

They traded the duty often and she was surprised by Koss' willingness to engage in the act of preparing the evening despite the cultural tradition that placed it largely in the realm of a woman's work and was further shocked and quietly delighted by his willingness and compulsion to expand from traditionally Vulcan faire to include dishes from many other races, particularly human. A part of her assumed this was just an effort on his part to recreate the diversity of culinary experiences she had experienced when on the _Enterprise_, but he took a peculiar zeal in expanding his cooking repertoire and seemed to take an illogical level of pleasure in surprising her with a well prepared and utterly unexpected meal.

The room itself was dim, dark even, the only light coming through slitted blinds, his form was silhouetted against the setting sun. Something felt...alien...about the room, its environment, a strange sense of the familiar for being so out of place, so dissonant from any time she had entered the room in the past.

"Hey, darlin'."

Something seized her insides, cold, creeping, playing up her spine and across her neck as she found herself swallowing, trying to force herself to breath, something she suddenly couldn't do as the voice in its unmistakable timbre and tone seemed to banish all other sound from the room. The silence hung until she realized that the sound was gone because she suddenly could not hear, and when the hearing did return it was to her choking on her inability to take in air. Bands of iron clasped across her chest, allowing no purchase for air, tight and constricting...was this panic? Was it sorrow? What had stolen her breath? Give it back!

"No." She managed to whimper.

The form came forward, Koss's face but not his expressions, not his eyes yet unmistakably his, like Trip wearing a Koss-skin mask. "It's time we let ya know."

"You died." She managed between impeded breaths.

"I did, but not 'fore Koss came along n' took my katra." he smiled at her, Trip's smile on Koss' face, "he wasn't gonna let you lose me."

Eyes that had seen fine blurred now as she felt tepid fluid sluicing down her cheeks, blood? Were the metal bands that had trapped her chest now about her head?

"It can't be." She bawled it, surely the result of air starved lungs, the convulsing high in her abdomen surely the result of the constriction, the blurred vision and wet face the corollary of asphyxia.

_I'm not crying...I am __**not**__ crying._

"Don' cry darlin'."

"You're crying." She spat, now her knees wouldn't work, perhaps from the lack of live-giving air, she began her ungainly plunge, trying to arrest the dive with nearby furniture...the air would give her a better ability to breath near the floor, altitude thinness, that had to be what this was.

_I am not sad, I just can't breath_.

"Remember I tol' ya once I was never gonna leave you?"

She looked up into the face, the nuance of expression even through hazed eyes laying the face of her k'diwa over that of sa-telsu, blending them as one confusing and mesmerizing whole. She managed a half nod as the wet of her face dripped onto her folded legs, wicking into the robe as his arms wrapped around her to keep her from putting her face to the floor. She managed a half bob of her head.

"Koss made sure I didn' make a liar of m'self."

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**[! Author's Note !]**

**This is the T'Pol and (late)Trip as were introduced in Book 1's Chapter 45. Most of these are going to be comparatively short, they just don't belong on the Blurb Edition. I am also planning on doing a "prompts" version while I suss out all the other stories because that's what all the in-kids do, so if you have a word or idea prompt, go ahead and throw it in the comments.**


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